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Thursday, April 17, 2008

GOOSEBERRIES, CURRANTS, AND RHUBARB -- OH MY!

Today I stopped in at Hay's Produce Market in Clarkston to buy a rhubarb plant for the farm. Poking around, I discovered they also had Pixwell gooseberry bushes and several varieties of currants. I was surprised about that. I figured I would have to send for those because I've never seen them in the markets. Maybe I just don't get out enough. Naturally I bought the gooseberry and a red currant bush. It feels so good to be replacing some of the old bushes that have disappeared from the homestead over the years. Hay's also had blueberry bushes in several varieties. (On a previous blog, Milo said he was planting blueberry bushes in his yard.) I decided to research blueberry bushes before buying any.


Internet service returns to the homestead on May 1. Mike had it discontinued over the winter. That explains why I was unsuccessful in getting it to come up last weekend. So, I'll be away from this desk for a few days getting more updates for the blog.



Here's an old photo of the farm taken in 1935 that shows fruit trees -- quite a number of them, it appears -- on the south side of the house. I wonder how long they had that orchard, if it was successful, why they removed those trees.

3 comments:

  1. Interesting placement of the orchard. I always thought it was smaller and on the west side of the house. Where will your orchard be? There isn't enough room on the south side anymore.

    How much attention do you think they will need? It sure gets hot up there!

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  2. Wow, there must be twenty of them. If not disease of droubt, maintenance may have been to much for your aging grandparents and disinterested father.- mvw

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  3. A blog entry this week will address questions and concerns about orchard / garden placement. Other farm photos indicate the orchard there to the south of the house from at least 1920 into the 1940s. You're probably right about the reasons they took them out. But, they probably lasted a good lifetime anyway. XO

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